The Good Luck of Right Now(10)

The organ started up, pews creaked as everyone stood in unison, and the congregation happily began to sing, relieved that we were once again on familiar ground.

Standing alone in the last pew, I hid my Interesting Things I Have Heard notebook inside the hymnal and scribbled away.

When we finished, Father Hachette said, “‘I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing,’ John 15:5. You may be seated.” (I also wrote that in my notebook. Accuracy confirmed.) I don’t remember what Father Hachette spoke about during his impromptu homily, because I couldn’t stop thinking about Father McNamee. A few times I thought I might get up and go into the priests’ chambers to see if he was okay—to encourage him, to tell him he shouldn’t quit being a priest. There was a warm feeling in my chest. It made me feel like I should help in some way—but what could I do?

Father McNamee is an accomplished and trusted priest; he helps many people—like, for example, his famous program where he organizes troubled inner-city youths and “transforms” them into counselors at his summer program for handicapped kids, which makes the local news every July.

He came to visit Mom often when she was sick and arranged for a church member to do all of the legal work required for me to own the house after she died, since she didn’t have a very good will. Father McNamee arranged for Wendy to visit once a week at no charge to me, because Mom left me with very little money. He also spoke so beautifully at her funeral, calling her a “Woman of Christ” (I wrote that in my notebook), and—because I have no other living family members—he drove me to the shore afterward and we walked the beach together to “get my mind off” her passing.

“We’re just like Jesus and his disciples hanging out by the sea,” I said to him while we were strolling past cold whitecaps, and Father McNamee must have got some sand in his eyes because he started to rub them. I heard him whimper in pain as the seagulls screamed above. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he answered and waved me off.

The wind flicked one of his tears airborne, and it landed on my earlobe.

Then we walked for a long time without saying anything at all.

He spent the first night after Mom’s funeral with me too, in our home, and we drank more whiskey than we probably should have—Father McNamee doing three “fingers” for every one of mine got him red and drunk quickly—but it was good to have his company.

Father McNamee has done so much for Mom and me over the years. “God sent him to us,” she used to say about Father McNamee. “Father McNamee was truly called.”

A few years ago, I finally confessed the sin of masturbation to Father McNamee, and he didn’t make me feel shameful about it. He whispered through the confession screen, “God will send you a wife one day, Bartholomew. I am sure of it.”

Shortly after that, The Girlbrarian started working at the library, and I have often wondered if this was God’s work. Again, we are reminded of Jung’s Synchronicity. Unus mundus.

Now I pray to God and ask for the courage needed to speak to The Girlbrarian, who always seems to glow in the library the way Mary glows in the stained glass window whenever the sun shines into Saint Gabriel’s.

But courage never comes.

I pray for words, and those evaporate instantly whenever I see The Girlbrarian at the library and get so hot, it’s like my brain is boiling in my skull.

Perhaps the you-me of pretending would have a better shot, but the thing is, I want The Girlbrarian to fall in love with Bartholomew Neil and not us, Richard Gere. You would win her over with a flash of your smile or a wink—it would be so easy for you. I want to win her affection, but my ways are slower.

From what I have been reading about Buddhism, this desire is what keeps me trapped far away from enlightenment. But then I remind myself that you have a wife, and if Richard Gere the great Buddhist and friend of the Dalai Lama can have such desires, it must be okay for me too. Right?

When this past Saturday’s Mass was over, Father Hachette would not let me speak with Father McNamee, nor would he let me into the priests’ chambers. “Pray for Father McNamee, Bartholomew. The best thing you can do is pray. Petition the Lord,” Father Hachette kept saying over and over as he reached up and patted my chest like he would pat a large pet—perhaps a Great Dane. “Just calm down,” he kept saying. “Let’s remain calm. All of us—one and all.”

Maybe I was more upset than I realized. Although the angry man in my stomach was not trying to destroy my internal organs. It was a different sort of upset. I have a tendency to get agitated when I worry. Regardless, Father Hachette looked scared. People are often afraid of me when I get agitated or angry. But I’ve never, ever hurt anyone—even in school when people used to shove me and call me a retard.

(The worst day of my life turned into one of the best experiences I ever had in high school, but taken as a whole, it made me feel very much like a retard. This beautiful girl named Tara Wilson came to my locker and in this very sexy voice she asked me to go down into the high school basement during lunch period. I knew this was where students went to have sex during school, and I was excited that one of the most popular girls in my class wanted to take me there. I also knew it was a trick. The angry man in my stomach was cursing and kicking and stomping and telling me not to fall for it. Don’t be their retard! the little angry man yelled. But I knew it was my only chance with Tara Wilson, and it was just too nice to pretend that she wanted to take me down into the high school basement, even though she looked so nervous and was sweating in December, so the pretending was extra hard. She even held my hand as we walked down the steps, which was wonderful. That brief minute of hand-holding was probably the best part of high school for me. And I still think about Tara Wilson—the way she used to poof her bangs up with hair spray, the three gold rope chains she wore around her neck and the gold dog tag that read T-A-R-A and had a small diamond chip on the lower right corner, how she smoked Marlboro Reds like a movie star on the corner after school, and how she’d throw her head back and blow the smoke straight up at the clouds as she laughed—like a wonderful beautiful kind of smokestack—with her cigarette resting in the crook of a peace sign. Even though she tricked me, I still like her very much to this day and hope that she has a nice family somewhere and is doing well. I hope Tara Wilson is happy. When we made it down into the basement, Tara led me to a dark corner. There were a dozen or so classmates down there—all boys. They circled me and started chanting, “Retard! Retard! Retard!” Before I knew what was happening so many hands were on me, and then I was alone in a dark supply closet and couldn’t get out or see anything. I screamed and banged on the door for hours, but no one came. Eventually, I pretended I was in my bed at home sleeping soundly and dreaming up this awful nightmare. I pretended I would wake up soon, Mom would make breakfast, and that helped for a time. Then the angry man in my stomach became furious, kicking and screaming and commanding me to escape, so I tried to knock down the door with my shoulder, but it felt like trying to move a mountain with my mind—my biceps started to ache and swell—and I eventually slid down into the darkness, wondering if I would die down there. I prayed, asking God to save me, but no one came. The cold set in. I spent the night there shivering on the concrete and Mom worried terribly, even calling the police. When I had given up entirely, the light rushed in and blinded me. “Oh my God. Are you okay?” I heard. It was Tara. And it was the next day, before anyone had arrived at our high school. She handed me a bottle of water and a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies. I drank the water immediately because I was so thirsty. “I’m sorry,” she said. “They made me do it.” My eyes adjusted to the light. Her makeup was running down her face, and she looked so apologetic and wretched that I forgave her right away. She told me that this classmate named Carl Lenihan had taken off her clothes when she was passed out drunk at a party, and then he took pictures of her. He was making her do things for him, using the pictures as blackmail. She begged me not to tell anyone that she had let me out. She was crying hysterically as she explained all of this, waving her hands around in the air, saying she thought I might have died from the furnace fumes and she was waiting outside the high school doors when the janitors arrived to open up for the day, and she was so glad I was okay—alive. But then—out of the blue—Tara Wilson did the strangest thing. She hugged me for a long time and cried into my shirt, saying she was sorry so many times. She cried and trembled so hard I thought she was going to die. I didn’t know whether she wanted me to hug her back or not, so I just stood there. Then she pulled my head down, kissed my cheek, and ran up the stairs and out of the high school basement. She never spoke to me ever again. When I’d pass her in the hallways, she would look the other way. And I never told anyone that I spent the night in the dark, cold supply closet in my high school’s basement. I don’t know why. I didn’t pretend that it never happened or was only a dream. I kept it to myself. You, Richard Gere, are the first person I have ever told. I told Mom I spent the night behind the art museum looking at the river flow—that the flowing water had hypnotized me and I had forgotten about time. I don’t think she believed me, but she didn’t call me a liar either, which I appreciated. She just looked into my eyes for a long time and then dropped it. Mom understood that it was better to let some things alone. Words could be used as weapons that do too much damage. All of the popular boys in my high school class called me “Tara” or “Closet Boy” until I graduated. Sometimes they called me “Tara’s retard.” And Tara never acknowledged me ever again. This is when I learned that nice people sometimes felt they had to pretend to be mean and awful. Since Tara, I’ve seen many people pretending to be rude and cruel and thoughtless. Have you noticed this too, Richard Gere? People choosing to pretend for evil rather than good? I don’t understand why people do this, but I understand that most choose the way of Tara, and this has often confused me.) Back at Saint Gabriel’s, I said to Father Hachette, “Will you ask Father McNamee to call me this evening?”